Rio Is Brazil's Choice for 2012 Olympics

Published 8:00 pm, Sunday, July 6, 2003

Rio de Janeiro was chosen as Brazil's candidate to host the 2012 Summer Olympics, joining a strong international field of bidders.

The Brazilian Olympic committee on Monday selected Rio over Sao Paulo, the country's biggest city. No South American city has held the Olympics.

The other candidates for 2012 are Moscow; New York; London; Paris; Madrid, Spain; Havana, Cuba; Leipzig, Germany; and Istanbul, Turkey. The IOC vote is in 2005.

This is Rio's second bid after being passed over for the 2004 Olympics, which were awarded to Athens, Greece. It was Sao Paulo's first bid.

The Brazilian committee selected Rio despite outbreaks of violence that have brought international media attention. Rio lately has come under siege from drug gangs, which control the city's shantytowns and have begun attacking police posts, shopping malls and tourist hotels.

In March, the government sent troops and tanks into the streets to keep order during Rio's famous Carnival holiday.

Rio's bid committee said the games would require investments of $1.6 billion, plus $3.1 billion more for infrastructure in this sprawling city, with a metropolitan area population of about 10 million.

City officials argued that Rio would have a head start on the 2012 Olympics because it will spend $300 million to stage the 2007 Pan American Games, lowering the needed investments to $1.3 billion.

Officials from Sao Paulo argued their city should host the Olympics because Rio had the Pan Am Games.

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Sao Paulo would have had to spend $1.2 billion to build stadiums, an Olympic Village and other facilities and $1.5 billion would have to be spent during the games. There already were plans to spend about $10 billion on infrastructure improvements.